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70 years later, former prisoners return to Auschwitz

Four people from a famous photo of 13 children taken at the Nazi death camp have returned for commemorations of their liberation.

Paula Lebovics, 81, Miriam Ziegler, 79, Gabor Hirsch, 85, and Eva Kor, 80, pose with the image taken of them as children at the time of the camp's liberation in January, 1945. To mark the 70th anniversary, the USC Shoah Foundation brought together four of the survivors from the image taken by Alexander Vorontsov. (Ian Gavan / Getty Images)

Paula Lebovics, 81, points to herself in the original image. Lebovic hopes the Auschwitz commemoration reminds people of the need for universal toleration of differences. (Ian Gavan / Getty Images)

Ruth Muschkes Webber was among the Auschwitz survivors who found it too emotionally painful to return to Auschwitz, particularly in winter, she said. Stricken with measles and pneumonia in the camp, Webber was forced to hide her symptoms to avoid a worse fate. (Courtesy Ruth Webber)

When Soviet photographer Alexander Vorontsov pointed his camera at the fence, telling newly liberated concentration camp children to gather there, he captured in one frame 13 stories of cruelty and torture at the hands of the Nazis.

Many of those thin, ragged children had lost their entire family — a whole generation wiped out by the fanatical war machine. Some had been experimented on by Dr. Josef Mengele, the camp's sadistic physician.

Seventy years after they were freed from Auschwitz, the children in the photo still bear the scars of war.

Four of the 13 have returned to the site this week, the anniversary of their liberation by Soviet troops in 1945, as part of an effort by the World Jewish Congress and the USC Shoah Foundation. A delegation of about 100 aging survivors, along with dignitaries from around the world, will commemorate the 70th anniversary Tuesday.

For Paula Lebovics, who now lives in Los Angeles, the trip back was meant to etch her memories in place, not only in her own mind but also in the public consciousness.

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"I want to make sure, first of all; I never want to forget, I don't want to forget. I want to make sure that the young people of today, the new generations, hear about it," she told the Star in an interview before leaving for Poland.

Lebovics was 9 years old when she first went to the forced labour camp in what is now known as Ostrowiec, Poland, where Miriam Ziegler Friedman, now a Toronto resident, was also imprisoned. Both appear in the 1945 photograph.

"We are never going to not know each other, because we are bound. We are bound," Lebovics said.

Friedman, who is attending the commemoration along with her daughter, told the Star earlier this year: “I still to this day I don't believe I could live through what I lived through.”

Many survivors aren’t able to attend the commemoration because of age and poor health.

As a statement from Robert Singer, chief executive officer of the World Jewish Congress, noted: “This may be the last major anniversary we will be able to remember with those who experienced the Holocaust firsthand. From this historic event, their voices will echo across the generations.”

Of the 13 children captured in the evocative photograph, three have died. The rest are in their 80s and scattered throughout the world, the majority in Israel.

Eva Mozes Kor, who also appears in the photo and now lives in Indiana, is another of the four returning to Auschwitz. Born in 1934, she appears in the photo standing near her twin sister, Miriam Mozes Zeiger, who died in 1993. The pair were part of Mengele's brutal experiments.

Others among the group had feigned being twins in order to be selected by Mengele. While being one of his subjects was torturous, it wasn’t immediately lethal, like the gas chamber.

Bracha Katz, who also appears in the photo, was 14 when she was sent to Auschwitz. She was told by a friendly kapo to pretend she was a twin to her little brother, Adolf. Adolf died, but Katz survived.

Eva Slonim and her sister Marta Wise were not twins, but siblings with different coloured hair and eyes — something that piqued Mengele's curiosity. It saved them from the gas chamber but condemned them to being part of his experiments.

A fourth child from the photo who is attending the 70th anniversary had been lost to historians until recently. In most popular version of the photo, all that can be seen of him is a dark crescent, his face hidden behind a child standing in front of him. But in another version, his face is partially visible.

Gabor Hirsch, 85, was just 15 when he was taken to Auschwitz, according to a biography compiled by the USC Shoah Foundation. Hirsch, who lives in Switzerland, was located just this year by the foundation's researchers, in time to attend the commemoration.

For many survivors, including some in the photo, the idea of returning to Auschwitz was simply too painful.

Ruth Muschkes Webber, who also spoke to the Star about her time in Auschwitz, said she couldn’t bear to return to the camp in the winter.

“We felt like we were not on Earth — like we were in some foreign world,” she said of the first time she set foot in the camp.

She fell ill while imprisoned there, stricken with measles and pneumonia, but was able to stay alive.

“I just happened to be in the right spot where I was able to hide my pain and sickness and not to cough when I knew that coughing would have me going up in smoke,” Webber, who now lives in Detroit, told the Star.

At least 1.1 million people died at Auschwitz, most of them Jews. The camp was the epicentre of a network of forced labour and death camps run by the Nazis and has come to symbolize the barbarity of the regime.

“This was the most heinous thing that happened in history,” said Lebovics. “What people did — and people still don’t know, and we’ve got to teach them. We’ve got to teach them about tolerance. We’ve got to teach them that we are all different but we’ve got to respect each other’s differences and we should learn to live in the same world.”

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